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When the snake decided to go straight, he didn't get anywhere.
William Stafford
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William Stafford
Age: 79 †
Born: 1914
Born: January 17
Died: 1993
Died: August 28
Author
Poet
Writer
Hutchinson
Kansas
Anywhere
Straight
Decided
Journey
Didn
Snake
Snakes
More quotes by William Stafford
Can injustice one way be corrected without the interim reaction that tries to impose injustice the other way?
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You can treat experience as a set of surprises on which to exercise your quirky self.
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If you don't know the kind of person I am and I don't know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
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You can lie at a banquet but you have to be honest in the kitchen.
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If you purify the pond, the lilies die
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So, the world happens twice-- once what we see it as second it legends itself deep, the way it is.
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I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don't have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.
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A student comes to me with a piece of writing, holds it out, says, 'Is this good?' A whole sequence of emergencies goes off in my mind. That's not a question to ask anyone but yourself.
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It is this impulse to change the quality of experience that I recognize as central to creation. . . . Out of all that could be done, you choose one thing. What that one thing is, nothing else can tell you--you come at it over unmarked snow.
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You were aimed from birth: you will never be alone... The whole wide world pours down.
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A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
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One way to find your place is like the rain, a million requests for lodging, one that wins, finds your cheek: you find your home.
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'Be alive,' the land says, 'listen - this is your time, your world, your pleasure.'
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If you can say it, it begins to exist.
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It's love,' they say. You touch the right one and a whole half of the universe wakes up, a new half.
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A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.
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The root and the flower have to trust each other. If the root does not trust, the plant won't blossom.
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A writer is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things.
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Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean.
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There are so many things admirable people do not understand.
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